Everthing Is
by Azremodehar
Summary: After the end, there are some things left unfinished, and Riku... wonders.
1. Chapter 1

Riku eyed the ruined door, on the half-ruined castle, there at the edge of nothing. The card in his hand - the one he couldn't quite bring himself to look at - was warm, for a piece of paper, and he couldn't stop running his thumb over the uneven edge of the top. He stared at the door, hanging on its hinges now, and wondered.

It was silent around him, and still, except for a flicker of white that he could see out of the corner of one eye. He wouldn't look at that, either, for much the same reason as he couldn't look at the card in his hand. His thumb ran over the top of it again, over ridges and dips, and took another step towards the door, pausing at the threshold, and hesitating again.

Would it work? _Could_ it work?

More importantly, did he _want_ it to work?

"And even if I want to," Riku said to himself. "Should I?" He turned the card between his fingers, and finally made himself look at it. A smirking face under a shock of red hair looked back out at him. The card seemed warmer now that he was closer to the castle, and he wasn't sure whether or not it was his imagination.

From the card, he forced himself to look at the gently swaying form of the Assassin, standing just out of his attack range. Watching him.

And back to the card.

Sora, he knew, didn't remember. Would never remember, not one single thing that had happened in Castle Oblivion. And so, he would never remember the cards tucked away at the bottom of one of his pockets. But Riku did.

One thing had lead to another, and Riku had found himself here, at Castle Oblivion, once again. One card in his hand.

And wondering.

"If this works," he muttered to the card. "We're even." And he stepped into the castle, and moved deeper, until he found himself in a still-flawless white-on-white-on-white room.

The card was almost burning in his fingers.

It was a simple matter, a kind of rusty second nature, to draw out the... potential of the card. It vanished from his hand with the same glitter of energy, and then--

Axel was blinking, as if someone had suddenly shined a bright light in his eyes, and then he grinned at Riku, and _laughed._ Riku's eyes narrowed.

"You knew," he said flatly. "That card was your insurance policy." Axel's grin widened, showing teeth and he stretched with what looked like intense pleasure.

"Everything is cards in Castle Oblivion," the Nobody - if he could still be called that; what the hell _could_ you call him now? - replied, the familiar edge of mockery in his voice. "Got it me-mo-ris-ed?" Riku scowled.

"So are you _real,_ or are you stuck here?" he asked. Axel's grin turned narrow, and bitter.

"As real as I've ever been, Riku." Riku snorted, and turned to leave. He'd done what he came to do. No need to stick around anymore.

"Going so soon?" Axel asked. Riku paused, and looked back over his shoulder.

"I have somewhere I need to be," he said. Sora. Kairi. "Do what you like."

He wondered if Axel would follow.


	2. Chapter 2

Axel stood in the empty white hall, and watched expressionlessly as Riku walked away. His memories were a foggy jumble; it would be distressing if he could feel anything, and he didn't have enough of himself back yet to even bother faking it.

Despite what he told Riku, he wasn't completely sure that he could exist outside of Oblivion. He _thought_ he could; that he was now what he had always been, as long as he had been 'Axel.' But he wasn't sure. And before he would be ready to test his new existence... He had to recover his memories.

Everything up to the point the card had been created was slotting into place neatly; soon, it would be as clear as ever. But afterwards... That was where the fog came in.

Axel could tell that there was more there than he could clearly remember; something about Roxas, something about Namine...

_I promised her something, I think._

But he couldn't remember what it was, and there was so much else... So many gaps, and blurry places, and some of it so important, he could almost feel it. And until he could remember some more... remember what was so important...

He sighed, and settled cross-legged in the middle of the floor.

"I guess I'm in the right place to go looking for memories, aren't I?" he asked no-one. The castle was empty; void of anything except the Heartless, and a few of his own Assassins that he could sense lurking about.

_Guard._ He sent the silent command, and then.

_Got it memorised?_

It was more than a corny catch-phrase, it was a hypnotic suggestion to himself. And every time he'd said it, it was another reinforcement of his own thoughts, his own memories, the patterns of his being, whether here, or somewhere else.

Especially around Sora. Who had carried his card.

_Got it memorised?_

Sora. Roxas. Riku. Namine.

Why did Riku think he 'owed' Axel? Or rather, didn't anymore.

_"...X-E-M-N-A-S. Got it memorised?"_

It was a fragment from Hollow Bastion, he had been telling Sora about Xemnas... Warning him? That seemed right. The real question was 'why.'

It had something to do with Roxas.

And he just couldn't remember what it was. He had fragments, scraps of conversation, and a sensation of _chasing_ or maybe _being chased;_ he wasn't sure which it was.

And somehow, he wasn't sure quite how, he thought that the Organisation's numbers were even further reduced than he had left them after Oblivion.

Axel searched those fragments of memory, scoured them for every scrap, pushed for every thread of connection, no matter how small, following the bits and pieces as far as he could, as far from the last moment that he held clear in his mind.

_"...the only one I liked..."_

Betwixt and Between. And after that... Nothing, until he had felt the pull of the card, and seen the unrelieved white of the interior of Castle Oblivion.

"Twilight Town," he said, as he let himself fall back on the ground into a sprawl. Piecing together scattered fragments of memory wasn't an easy task, but now he had somewhere to start.


End file.
